Square Adds Passbook Integration and Gift Cards

Square CEO Jack Dorsey today announced via Twitter that Square has added gift card capabilities to its iOS apps. The gift cards come alongside Passbook integration, which allows customers to send Square gift cards from local retailers and redeem them with Passbook.

Both of Square's iOS apps, merchant and consumer, have been updated to reflect the new changes.

Square Wallet, the consumer half of Square's payment system, gives customers the ability to purchase and receive gift cards from any retailer that uses Square Register to process payments. Many small businesses that previously didn't offer gift cards will now be able to via Square.

Square Register, which is designed for merchants, lets business owners accept the gift cards using a QR code, Square Wallet, or Apple's Passbook.

Give
Find a place your friends or family will love in Square Wallet. Choose the amount, write a special message, pick a theme and send. Instant gratification.

Receive
Save your Square gift card to Square Wallet so it's there when you need it. Using it is as easy as buying with Square Wallet. Simply say your name.

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With Passbook integration, iOS users don't even need to access Square Wallet, which greatly simplifies the act of giving and receiving gift cards. This update will likely add a significant boost to the $10 billion per year in payments that Square already processes, and it is also a huge boon for independent retailers.

So that's what one of my customers brought in yesterday. She kept talking about Square and I had no idea what she was talking about. The only problem is I couldn't scan the dang thing, I tried multiple times. I can scan a gift card through our company's app but not through Square.

But the gift receiver needs Square Wallet for this to be received, right?

That's going to slow things down, just like how no single 'SMS Replacement App' ever became halfway as successful as iMessage has. Having to call someone and say "install this thing so I can send you this other thing" is always a big hindrance.

It would be nice if Passbook can grow to where it can just accept things directly from an e-mail...so I could send from Square and the receiver could just approve the e-mail and have it go to Passbook even if they've never heard of Square before.

How long before Apple kills off Passbook. It looks like a disastrous failure to me. In the UK I can think one company who offer Passbook integration, and that's Starbucks. At the moment they are a very unpopular company over here. After that I'm stuck to think of another company that supports the service.

If you use the App store and try and search for apps that offer the integration, there just isn't a search function there for this.

To me it just looks doomed at the moment, no one seems to be clamouring to support this standard.

But the gift receiver needs Square Wallet for this to be received, right?

That's going to slow things down, just like how no single 'SMS Replacement App' ever became halfway as successful as iMessage has. Having to call someone and say "install this thing so I can send you this other thing" is always a big hindrance.

It would be nice if Passbook can grow to where it can just accept things directly from an e-mail...so I could send from Square and the receiver could just approve the e-mail and have it go to Passbook even if they've never heard of Square before.

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That's how it works right now. Passbook passes can be accepted from either your iOS/Mac mail client or your web browser.

For Square's gift card service, I suspect you will need the Square client to receive the gift. In general, Passbook passes don't need any special iOS app or client to redeem/use. You use the built-in Passbook app.

How long before Apple kills off Passbook. It looks like a disastrous failure to me. In the UK I can think one company who offer Passbook integration, and that's Starbucks. At the moment they are a very unpopular company over here. After that I'm stuck to think of another company that supports the service.

If you use the App store and try and search for apps that offer the integration, there just isn't a search function there for this.

To me it just looks doomed at the moment, no one seems to be clamouring to support this standard.

How long before Apple kills off Passbook. It looks like a disastrous failure to me. In the UK I can think one company who offer Passbook integration, and that's Starbucks. At the moment they are a very unpopular company over here. After that I'm stuck to think of another company that supports the service.

If you use the App store and try and search for apps that offer the integration, there just isn't a search function there for this.

To me it just looks doomed at the moment, no one seems to be clamouring to support this standard.

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It's been out for less than 3 months....... Do you expect it to be the end all thing this soon? please enlighten me on anything that was COMPLETELY successful, right out of the gate? Completely means not one person has a problem with it and they never have to fix anything with it

Starbucks and all the airlines had these pages in their apps before this. Passbook just gathers them up in one place.

Moving pages closer together is a "standard?"

All those barcodes existed long before Apple thought up Passbook.

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Thanks for arguing semantics, but I didn't know what else to call it. As it's a competitive/ alternative solution to NFS, then I chose the term 'standard', for want of a better description. It seemed to be Apples standardisation of a payment method for a handheld device, which brings together existing payment methods into one collative application. If this isn't standardising a payment method, or maybe I should have used the term 'organising', then kindly be helpful and come up with a better descriptive term Please.

I'll conceded though, I don't know what to call it when searching an appropriate adjective.

That's how it works right now. Passbook passes can be accepted from either your iOS/Mac mail client or your web browser.

For Square's gift card service, I suspect you will need the Square client to receive the gift. In general, Passbook passes don't need any special iOS app or client to redeem/use. You use the built-in Passbook app.

It's been out for less than 3 months....... Do you expect it to be the end all thing this soon? please enlighten me on anything that was COMPLETELY successful, right out of the gate? Completely means not one person has a problem with it and they never have to fix anything with it

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Three months since it's been in the wild, which is actually a fairly decent amount of time. I'm not sure how many thousand apps were out there on the iPad during this time period. And while Passbook is only 3 months old for consumer usage, it's been available for developers for a longer period of time. So seeing as there are very few companies currently supporting it, my interpretation is that it's not taking off very well. You might have a different interpretation, and that's fine, I just don't see it as being a success and wonder if it will be abandoned in 12 to 24 months.

Not all apps make sense for Passbook in its current form. Only eCommerce apps do.

The most popular iOS app category is games. I think Apple should integrate Passbook with Game Center and iAd automagically. Passbook coupon sponsorship or referral would be another income stream for game developers, and another incentive to play games on iOS.

Apple can easily flip the Passbook concept around in many ways on iOS. Too early to kill off.

How long before Apple kills off Passbook. It looks like a disastrous failure to me. In the UK I can think one company who offer Passbook integration, and that's Starbucks. At the moment they are a very unpopular company over here. After that I'm stuck to think of another company that supports the service.

If you use the App store and try and search for apps that offer the integration, there just isn't a search function there for this.

To me it just looks doomed at the moment, no one seems to be clamouring to support this standard.

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Well, the truth is only specific kinds of apps have any reason to use Passbook, other apps just tend to lag behind others in feature adoption. It's still fairly new.

Well, the truth is only specific kinds of apps have any reason to use Passbook. Many apps just tend to lag behind others in feature adoption. It's still fairly new.

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That's a fair point, and a good way of looking at it.

I'd love to be able to use the app more, but I just can't find anything to use it for. I'd rather use it than a credit or debit card if I'm honest. I have a couple of store loyalty cards, and a cinema pass I'd like to use it for.

I'm not arguing over the semantics of the word "standard." I'm arguing over the "Apple" part of your argument.

Starbucks and many Airlines already had these scannable pages well before Passbook, so rather than alluding to it as Apple standard you should be calling it a "Coffee Shop/Airline Standard." (In fact, it seems the Starbucks Android app has the exact same feature so it's not even iOS-exclusive.)

So were Apple to shut Passbook down, as you suggest, then those companies would just keep using them in their apps.

My bottom line is, when you say Apple should shut it down, my question is, how? Just killing Passbook wouldn't do it.

How long before Apple kills off Passbook. It looks like a disastrous failure to me. In the UK I can think one company who offer Passbook integration, and that's Starbucks. At the moment they are a very unpopular company over here. After that I'm stuck to think of another company that supports the service.

If you use the App store and try and search for apps that offer the integration, there just isn't a search function there for this.

To me it just looks doomed at the moment, no one seems to be clamouring to support this standard.

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NFC has been out for more than 2 years and no-one gives a crap about it. Passbook is out 3 months and it should be killed off? Nice business decision.

Am I the only one who finds Passbook incredibly confusing? It would make sense to me if I installed 'nodes' in it, for, say, American Airlines or whatever service I'm using. But the fact that I install separate apps and then it somehow works with those apps? Very confusing. It's like having a wallet that connects to a pocket full of loyalty cards rather than having them tucked away inside.

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